Justice Arun Mishra retires from the Supreme Court of India on 2 September as the second senior-most judge after Justice NV Ramana, the next in line to be the Chief Justice of India. His tenure, after elevation to the apex court in July 2014, has been eventful and he leaves the court as one of the most controversial judges in its history. Even his final days in office proved headline-worthy, from the Prashant Bhushan contempt case to the Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) row, which have sparked debate across the country. In his six-year stint under seven different Chief Justices of India, he was involved in a number of high-profile, politically sensitive cases, even when he was considered a more ‘junior’ judge. This led to serious criticism of not just Justice Mishra but the CJIs who kept assigning cases to him – the high watermark of which was no doubt the unprecedented press conference by four senior judges of the apex court in January 2018. While the four judges’ letter setting out their concerns about the assignment of politically sensitive cases to ‘preferred benches’ did not take any names, they held the press conference on a day when Justice Mishra was supposed to be heading a bench hearing the Judge Loya case. When asked if the bench in that case was an example of the problems highlighted by them, Justice Ranjan Gogoi (as he then was) told the press: “Yes.” Although Justice Mishra had himself removed from that case following the press conference, he continued to be assigned some of the most sensitive cases, even by Justice Gogoi when he became CJI, including investigation into the conspiracy that CJI Gogoi insisted was behind the sexual harassment allegations against him. Here is a look at five of the most controversial cases and judgments that Justice Mishra was involved in, which will go on to define his legacy at the apex court. Sahara-Birla Diaries In 2017, Justice Mishra had his first brush with controversy when a two-judge bench headed by him dismissed a petition seeking an investigation into the ‘Sahara-Birla’ diaries. Documents recovered from the offices of the Aditya Birla Group during a raid in 2013 by the officers of Income Tax department and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) showed payments in crores appeared to have been made to different politicians. One of the entries in the documents allegedly showed a payment of Rs 25 crore to the then Gujarat Chief Minister and present Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In 2015, the NGO Common Cause, filed an application in the Supreme Court seeking a probe into the Sahara-Birla documents as the Income Tax department had not handed over these documents to the CBI, which was also looking into these companies, for further investigation. KV Chowdary was leading the investigation by the Income Tax department into the Sahara-Birla documents. He was appointed as the Chief Vigilance Commissioner in June 2015. Common Cause had challenged his appointment as CVC due to several allegations of corruption against him. In July 2018, Justice Arun Mishra’s bench dismissed this petition filed by Common Cause. The perceived proximity of Justice Mishra towards the ruling dispensation of the day was alleged by some sections of lawyers and activists to be behind the dismissal of the demand for a probe into the Sahara-Birla diaries.